Shifting

“Gratitude is the litmus test of Self realization.” Byron Katie

The genesis for this Slow Lane is a question. A 76 year-old woman came to the informal gathering of some old folks on Friday at Coffee Catz, a coffee house in Sebastopol. She brought with her a question that was haunting her. It seems like a pertinent one for all of us. She wondered, out loud, when does one know they have gone beyond grandolescence (a term used to refer to the adolescence-like transition period between adulthood and elderhood) into elderhood? This is an uncertainty that bedevils and perplexes many old people. Most of them, lacking the reflective learning community of the Elder Salon, and its peripheries, ask it more in the form of, when can one be considered a elder?

I don’t think that anyone human can really answer her question, because I believe Life selects the ripest of us for that particular set of challenges. Never-the-less, there seems to be something about maturing that delivers one to the place where Life selects. My take is based on my experience, and represents only a version for consideration. Life makes the selection, and I think the most we can do is ready ourselves as much as possible.

I know her well enough to know she is going through a rather rough change in her life. I think it fair to say that Life is putting her through a time of reduction that is asking her a fundamentally difficult question. Who is she now? She isn’t who she used to be, she’s lost a lot of capacity, and being like she is now — the more essentialized being — then who is she now?

The last stage of life is so much about integration that it constantly delivers up realizations about what is really important about one’s existence. These moments, or periods of life, can be confusing. They add to the sense that one isn’t who they used to be. If one isn’t securely grounded in self (and let’s face it, most of us aren’t) then this kind of integrative challenge generates a lot of uncertainty. It raises questions, like hers, about maturity.

The idea that there is a transitional period (which I have called grandolescence) between adulthood and elderhood is new enough that it is bound to generate questions. I’m not sure when elderhood starts. But, my experience suggests a few things. The transitional period (grandolescence) introduces a lot of loss to most of us. These losses might take the form of the loss of a partner, the death of significant friends or family members, illness, financial uncertainty, cognitive shifts, and the loss of social status, prestige, or the ability to be as productive. Multiple, sometimes simultaneous, losses. All of this loss is introduced to us in the initial phase of becoming older. Diminishment is a real component of old age. It hurts and confuses.

Culturally, this much of the transition to elderhood, is seen. This accounts for some of the cultural fatalism about aging. There is a whole lot more to the story however. The less visible inside dimension is lost. And this is where the real ripening is taking place. Her question is really about the inside indicators that ripening is taking place? Futhermore, I suspect, she is wondering what is it that is carrying her beyond this partly-formed place towards a more complete version of herself?

The time after my stroke taught me a lot about making a shift. I went from bedeviled and broken David to freshly enabled Lucky. And, I think that my experience is pertinent to making the same kind of shift to elderhood. I lost most all aspects of my life. I thought I was done for. I wasn’t. Somewhere along the way I realized that looking at, and dwelling upon, my massive losses, was killing me. So even though my losses were compelling, I began the long, arduous, and lonely process of shifting my gaze to what remained. By re-focusing my attention, never ignoring the truth of my losses, but concentrating on making the most of what remained, I discovered a new life.

Elderhood, in my opinion asks for a similar shift of attention. To me, gratitude, happiness, integrity, and freedom are the hallmarks of elderdom. They are what remains. They are the gains, if you will, that come alongside all of the losses. One has to shift their gaze to see them. The cultural penchant for external orientation, looking primarily outside oneself, makes the losses alone visible, but the gains mostly reside inside, and are only visible to those who do shift their gaze. Shifting is hard. It’s counter-cultural. It involves occupying a minority position. It takes enormous amounts of solitude and community. But, the reward is that the miraculousness of the world is part of what remains.

Elders enjoy a kind of double-vision, a paradoxical binocularism. By focusing on what remains, they can see the sorrows of the world alongside its miraculous nature. They are more grateful because they have learned the difficult skill of placing their attention right in the breach, were things come together.

Shifting is an acquired skill. It is available to everyone. It is the answer to how one goes through transition, and comes out paradoxically smaller and bigger. Life takes away, and gives all at the same time. This pattern is especially perceptible to those who make this shift.